Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) * * *

 

Directed by:  Rob Reiner

Starring:  Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, James Woods, Craig T. Nelson, Michael O'Keefe, Virginia Madsen, Diane Ladd, Bill Cobb, William H. Macy

Civil rights activist Medgar Evers was gunned down in his own driveway on June 12, 1963 by Byron de La Beckwith, who after two hung jury trials escaped justice until the case was reopened in the late 1980's.  In one of his early trials, former Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett openly walked into the courtroom and shook de la Beckwith's hand while Evers' widow Myrlie (Goldberg) was testifying on the witness stand.  

Ghosts of Mississippi tells of the long journey the Evers family took to finally claim some justice.   Yes, it was terrible that de la Beckwith (Woods) spent the bulk of his life a free man, but in the end he at least got what he deserved and he would later die in prison.    Myrlie pleads her case to have the trial reopened to Hinds County D.A. Ed Peters (Nelson) and assistant D.A. Bobby DeLaughter (Baldwin). They dismiss Myrlie out of hand at first, but after a bout with his conscience, DeLaughter agrees to reopen the case.   After a quarter of a century, reconstructing the case won't be easy.   Most of the evidence is lost.   Many of the witnesses are dead.   There is no court transcript, although that problem is rectified in a manner that is a tad hard to believe. 

Despite threats from de la Beckwith sympathizers, his marriage to his wife (Madsen) crumbling because she wishes he never took the case, and the mounting challenges of retrying de la Beckwith, DeLaughter presses on.   Ghosts of Mississippi operates more in the vein of a traditional courtroom procedural and thriller, and on those levels it works .   Standing above the other actors (who do fine work) with a bit more energy is James Woods (Oscar-nominated for this role), who infuses de la Beckwith with cockiness and an absence of humanity.   He isn't just a murderer and a racist, he clearly loves being both more than anything else on Earth.   The opening scenes capture the pre-Civil Rights Act Mississippi with a specific and potent outrage.  Byron de la Beckwith not only got off, his hometown threw him a parade.   I can't say for sure whether this actually occurred, but it wouldn't surprise me if it had.

Ghosts of Mississippi is mostly about making us a witness to de la Beckwith finally getting his just desserts.   He arrogantly never believed he would ever be convicted, as he illustrates in a scene in the courthouse bathroom with DeLaughter.    We are waiting for the verdict to come in and to celebrate long-deferred justice for Evers, who according to one character:  "Before Martin Luther King, Medgar was the civil rights movement."  Ghosts of Mississippi is painted in bold strokes, and that is just fine with us.  

 

The Four Seasons (1981) * * *

 

Directed by:  Alan Alda

Starring:  Alan Alda, Carol Burnett, Len Cariou, Sandy Dennis, Jack Weston, Rita Moreno, Bess Armstrong

Three married couples have been vacationing together during all four seasons for longer than any of them care to remember.    They spend time together, but are they really close?   They drink, they laugh, they tell stories, but there is tension underneath the cheery surface.   Does familiarity indeed breed contempt?  One of the wives tells her husband she would like to go away without the others next time.  You can imagine the gasp when that news is broken to the others.   Who knows?   Maybe everyone else thinks the same way.  

The strength of The Four Seasons which endures even through occasional sitcom situations and dialogue is how the dynamic between the group is tested when Nick (Cariou) tells Jack (Alda) he is leaving his wife one day after celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary in a cabin where everyone convened for the spring vacation.   It is the first time in which the illusion of the group's closeness is tested and then altered forever.   Nick insists he is not leaving Anne (Dennis) for another woman, but when summer comes and the group heads to the Virgin Islands to spend some time on a boat, Nick has the younger Ginny (Armstrong) in tow.   Nick and Ginny loudly do the rumpy-pumpy to the chagrin of the others, who are either appalled at the lack of etiquette or envious that such a spark has gone out of their own marriages.   

Thankfully, Ginny is not seen as a vapid bimbo, but as a woman who understands how her presence has shaken things up within the group.   She loves Nick, and is even willing to endure awkward moments like meeting Anne in-person during a visit to Nick's daughter's college in the fall.  Ginny begins as an outsider, but everyone grows to accept her as part of the new normal.   In a way, Ginny is the mirror the others hold up to look at their own lives.   She is object of either admiration, scorn, or envy; depending on the day.

The other couples, Jack and Kate (Burnett), a successful lawyer and publisher respectively, and Danny (Weston), a hypochondriac dentist who fears death and Claudia (Moreno), who knows how to handle Danny's eccentricities, are more or less happy, but how they view their marriages will soon be tested.  The couples are comfortable with each other, but are they happy?   Jack is forever trying to coerce the others to discuss their emotions and clear the air, but he seems to hold back his own feelings in reserve much to Kate's displeasure.   Danny kvetches with the best of them, but during one critical and touching scene, he confesses to his friends why he worries about everything.    

Not everything is neatly tied up in the end, but we get the feeling these friends will always stay that way.   The actors have great chemistry and Alda's writing and directing are subtle and smart.  Friends and relatives tend to move in and out of people's lives.   Anne intelligently determines that Kate and Claudia haven't been around as much after she and Nick split.   It's as if they won Nick in the divorce and staying friends with Anne would add a level of awkwardness no one is willing to deal with.   The Four Seasons is not simply about lifelong friends, but the discomfort and insecurity that sometimes accompanies an eternal friendship.    

The Misfits (2021) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Renny Harlin

Starring:  Pierce Brosnan, Nick Cannon, Jamie Chung, Rami Jaber, Hermione Corfield, Tim Roth, Mike Angelo

Pierce Brosnan could read a restaurant menu with panache and style.   He injects whatever life is present in the tired, overly stylized caper film The Misfits, which is doomed to be quickly forgotten by audiences everywhere.  The premise at least piqued marginal interest:   A group of thieves steal not for profit, but to help those less fortunate.   This is explained in overly hyper fashion by Ringo (Cannon), who pilfers safe a bank's safe deposit boxes while dressed as a blaxpoitation-style pimp.   Nothing like dressing in flashy duds which went out of style decades ago to remain inconspicuous while you're robbing a bank.

The proceeds go to a single mother whose ex was hiding money which was supposed to be earmarked for child support and other honest people shafted by others.   The setup had promise, but that hastily dissipated once the group's latest plan is revealed.   The group, who call themselves The Misfits, consists of Ringo, explosives expert Wick (Angelo), ass kicker Victoria (Chung), and a guy named Prince (Jaber) who may or may not be a real prince from an unnamed wealthy Middle East nation.   

The Misfits track down and hire thief Richard Pace (Brosnan), who broke out of prison seemingly to run pickpocket scams.   This pisses off Werner Schultz (Roth), who privately owns dozens of prisons including the one Richard escaped from and whose wife Richard may or may not have slept with.  This is not confirmed, but likely to have happened.  The Misfits want to break into a prison (not coincidentally owned by Schultz) located in the middle of Middle East nation Jazeristan, which appears to be a short camel ride away from Abu Dhabi.   There is a stockpile of gold bars in a vault there used to fund terrorist activity.   The Misfits, with help from Richard and his daughter Hope (Corfield), will steal the gold so it doesn't wind up in terrorist hands.   Then, perhaps donate the gold to a worthy cause.  This is surely noble, but the heist itself is laughable.

Once the exposition is laid out, the movie screeches to a halt so the thin characters can try and muster up some depth.   Richard and Hope are estranged.   Hope is angry at dad for never being around, etc., etc.  Hope and Victoria discuss Victoria's hatred of men, which is the explanation as to why she takes extra joy in beating them up.   Ringo explains why Ringo Starr is the best Beatle and why he chose to use his name.   The crew then hires a caravan of camels to trek across the desert to Jazeristan since I suppose there are no paved roads leading from Abu Dhabi to wherever this Jazeristan is.

I won't reveal how the heist is pulled off, except to say the vault is penetrated with relative ease.   Do you recall the vault in Ocean's Eleven and how it was tricked out with cameras, laser security systems and a bomb had to be detonated from the inside to open the door?   No such effort is required here.   As I recall, Richard and Wick drill a hole in the bathroom floor which is situated above the vault, drop in a couple of explosives, and relieve the prison of the gold bars without breaking a sweat.   There is only one camera protecting the gold, and oddly there doesn't appear to be enough gold there to finance a whole terrorist operation.   But I'm no expert on gold bars.

The Misfits is directed by Renny Harlin, who directed some solid action pictures in the past including the superior Die Hard 2.   There is little evidence of that skill here.   The chase scenes are standard fare with quick cuts and crazy camera angles.   Everything about The Misfits is by rote.  Even Tim Roth, who normally plays a great villain, seems largely disengaged here.   The Misfits has straight-to-On-Demand written all over it.   What a shame because there are talented people in the movie.  

Cruella (2021) * *

Directed by:  Craig Gillespie

Starring:  Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Mark Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Joel Fry, Emily Beecham

If you've ever wondered how Cruella DeVil became the Dalmatian-hating villain, then the bloated Cruella is for you.   The trouble with origin stories is that most times we don't need to know them.    However, sometimes they are well-made and meaningful, like Joker (2019), but in most cases we learn things about the character we never realized we didn't care about.   Cruella looks great and has a fun soundtrack, but the rest of the movie is enveloped in gloom and sadness.   

Cruella begins as Estella, a young girl with half-black, half-white hair symbolizing her internal struggle to be either good or evil.   Good triumphs for a while, until her mother (Beecham) dies after being pushed over a cliff by fashion mogul Baroness (Thompson), or actually Baroness' Dalmatians, but no matter.  Now an orphan, Estella falls in with two petty thieves (Fry and Hauser) and they become a makeshift family.   Years later, Estella longs to be a fashion designer and falls in with Baroness as her top designer.  Baroness is the disdainful maliciousness Cruella could only dream of being on her best day.   Even when Cruella decides to forego her good side and embrace her wickedness, she is still doing a pale imitation of Baroness.   Emma Thompson has a ball here.

The camera loves Emma Stone and she does what she can with a character who doesn't know whether she wants to be a hero or a villain.   She's stuck in the middle and Cruella never figures out the answer.  Who is Cruella?  She is either cruel to her loyal underlings in one scene and then calling them family in the next.   As Cruella finally rolls the end credits after over two hours, we are not able to make the leap from that Cruella to the one who wants to make coats out of dogs.    Since a second Cruella is in the works, it appears we may get our answer if we were interested.   The question is:  Are we?  

Army of the Dead (2021) * 1/2

Directed by:  Zack Snyder

Starring:  Dave Bautista, Ana de la Reguera, Omari Hardwick, Tig Notaro, Hiroyuki Sanada, Garret Dillahunt, Ella Purnell

Despite Zack Snyder's attempts to instill dark humor into images of zombies' exploding heads and blood flying everywhere, Army of the Dead is thin in every way.   We hardly care about the characters, the heist they must pull off as they ward off deadly zombies, and we are forced to spend over two hours with them.  

Zombies themselves are boring villains.  I'm sure I've expressed this in previous reviews about zombie movies.   The occasional good zombie movies are populated with at least humor and living people we care about.   Army of the Dead's characters are mostly anti-hero types.   Would it kill anyone to give us straight-up heroes to root for instead of guys and gals who couldn't care less if we like them or not?   The anti-hero thing is beginning to play itself out.   You're either a good guy or a creep we would like to see blown away.  Pick one.   No one wants to commit to anything anymore.

The zombies in Army of the Dead are let loose after their transport from Area 51 is involved in a deadly accident near Las Vegas.   The zombies descend upon Sin City and some heroic (perish the thought) soldiers such as Scott Ward (Bautista) fight them off and keep them at least contained to the city limits.   The U.S. government builds a wall around Vegas (think Escape from New York) and the zombies are at least contained for the time being.

The plot thickens when a billionaire businessman (Sanada) enlists Scott and his band of recruits to rob a vault deep in the heart of one of the abandoned casinos.   The crew gets to keep most of the money if they are able to leave Vegas alive.   I honestly can't recall what the businessman stands to gain from the heist.  Whatever it was, it wasn't important enough for me to give a hoot.   Cue the zombies attacking in droves, cue the "heroes" blowing their heads off with their weapons, and blood splatters all over the place.

It's all so repetitive and boring.   Army of the Dead would only seem fresh to those who never saw a zombie movie before.   Bautista is an action star with depth and humor, but he needs someone to play.   He has worked with some top-flight directors and has gained valuable experience transitioning from the wrestling ring to Hollywood.   Let's get him some better material and see what he can really do.   Army of the Dead isn't it.  

Miss Sloane (2016) * *

Directed by:  John Madden

Starring:  Jessica Chastain, Mark Strong, Alison Pill, Sam Waterston, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jake Lacy, John Lithgow

Washington politics is a dirty business.   Lobbyists resort to the lowest of the low to achieve their desired end.   Miss Sloane exposes the sleaze of this institution.   Don't stop the presses or pause before hitting send on your blogs and the on-line article you plan to publish.   Jessica Chastain stars as Elizabeth Sloane, a lobbyist who finds herself the subject of a Congressional inquiry into her tactics as Miss Sloane opens.   As movies are wont to do with their timelines these days, we soon are transported back to "three months earlier" and learn how Miss Sloane got to this point.

Elizabeth (who for some reason has a real first name of Madeline which she never uses, so why even saddle her with it?) works for a prestigious lobby firm which is approached by a senator looking to kill a bill which would make it more difficult to buy guns.   Perhaps this is the cynic in me, but maybe Miss Sloane is based in fantasy by suggesting it takes this much effort to kill such a bill in Congress.   If there is anything both red and blue states can agree on, it's the love of guns.   But I digress...

Miss Sloane openly flaunts her disdain for the senator and the bill and winds up working for another firm which wants to see the bill passed.   Miss Sloane has ideals after all, although they are buried under her general unscrupulousness and cold manipulation of her friends and co-workers.   Elizabeth barely sleeps and has such little time for a personal life that she hires a male gigolo (Lacy) on the regular to provide her with a few moments of rumpy-pumpy before she dismisses him and resumes her job.   The gigolo is the closest thing Elizabeth has to a friend.   Love is out of the question.

Chastain breathes as much life as she can into Elizabeth, but there isn't much in Miss Sloane which we can sink our teeth into.   The targets of the movie's venom are obvious.   The explanation by Miss Sloane as to how and why things unfold as they do is baffling.   It feels like a Big Reveal is simply thrown in for cheap effect.   Director John Madden has made some substantial films before and will again, but Miss Sloane just feels plain unnecessary.    

Final Account (2021) * * *

Directed by:  Luke Holland

Documentary filmmaker Luke Holland recorded interviews beginning in 2008 of surviving members of Hitler Youth who witnessed or partook in Nazi crimes against humanity.   Many have since changed their thought process about Hitler and the Nazi regime, while a few hold out in their deranged belief that what the Nazis did was justified.  

Interspersed with archive footage, Holland's Final Account records the testimony of the last living Germans who were there from Night of the Long Knives up to and including the Holocaust.   There is even a lyric from a song imploring Germans to "Sharpen the long knives...so they go better in the Jewish belly,"  No subtlety there.   Holland's aim is noble.   It is a race against time for Holland to film his subjects' statements before death silences them forever.  

For the most part, Final Account is an intriguing documentary of how time and age alter views of history and past actions.   There are occasional lulls because Final Account is essentially interview subjects talking, and some subjects aren't as compelling as others, but the underlying question enters our minds:  What would you do?  Most of the former Hitler Youth members (or Germans themselves) didn't speak up or take against action against the Nazis out of fear of repercussions, with the worst being a bullet to the head.    Many of these Germans chose self-preservation at the expense of others' lives.  Following the end of World War II, these men and women have to live with their choices every day for the next sixty-plus years.  Many of these people say they were only following orders, while others say they had no alternative but to follow orders because they didn't want to line up alongside the Jews who were being murdered.   

The question remains:  What would you do?  This by no means lets the subjects off the hook for their actions or inaction during the rise and rule of Nazi Germany.   They made their choice.   Let's hope others won't have to make the same choices.